Recommended Reading

There are problems that occur in everyone’s lives that make you feel that circumstances are just not right or fair. Sometimes you feel you have just managed to get through a difficult time when suddenly you are blind-sided by an even greater problem. These are the “crooked things” of life. Rev. Maurice Roberts shares more on this topic with us:

“And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.” (Isaiah 42:16)

Crooked things occur in our lives, don’t they? What’s meant by ‘crooked things’? Well, it means problems we can’t understand, and we’ve all got those, haven’t we? Haven’t you got problems in your life? You may say, “Why did my dear husband have to die?” “Why did my dear wife have to get ill?” “Why is my child laid in bed?” “Why has my uncle got to go to hospital?” “Why have I lost my health?” “Why did they have that car smash and their bodies are now ruined for the rest of their lives?” These are crooked things. . . .

Let me tell you about the Book of Job. Job was a rich man. Everything was going fine for years and suddenly everything went wrong. His children were killed, his house was smashed, his health broke down, and all the rest of it. It couldn’t have been much worse. And he was sitting in the dust, scraping himself because he was covered with boils from head to foot. Now that’s a tremendous change from being rich and powerful and influential, to being ill and lost property, lost money, lost children and so on. And he couldn’t understand it. It was a tremendous problem. “Why has God done this to me?” was the question. And maybe you have a question like that. But when you read the Book of Job you’ll see God was working everything out wisely for Job’s good. So Job had twice as much in the end, twice as much as he had before. And that’s what God does to his people; he brings them down so as to bring them up again, higher than ever. . . .

[T]here are plenty of people, who have known the gospel for years, but maybe the only way God will get you to listen to the gospel is when he puts you in a sickbed, or you’re carted out in an ambulance. . . . And there in the quietness of a hospital ward you say to yourself: “Am I going to die?” And then maybe you’ll see the need you have of Christ and the gospel and eternal life, because many people die, and they die without Christ and they go into eternal death. I hope you know that, dearest friends.

So this is what God means here. “I will bring them through crooked things and make them straight for them.” You know, the cross of Christ is a crooked thing. . . . And the cross of Christ is crooked to so many people. They say, “Why did Jesus Christ have to die? He was such a wonderful man. . . . It’s a crooked thing, you see. They can’t understand the cross. And the explanation is that God cursed Him for your sake and my sake. He died on the cross for our sake. He died in the room of the wicked – the just dying for the unjust, suffering our penalty, that we might be saved. That’s the wonderful thing about the gospel, that’s the amazing thing. God is making this crooked thing to be straightforward. (Sermon: “God’s Grace to Blind Sinners”)